VOYAGE TO APHRODITE




ENTRY: For a long time we sailed.  A long time indeed.  To the very ends of the earth, it seemed.  The stars, the tides and the horizon played games with our instruments.  Dead reckoning became a constant- pure faith and memory, even when memory was failing.  And then, just like that...it cleared...and we saw like never before- new, waiting, ready to be discovered.  So beautiful and completely breathtaking, as we had never seen her before.

Etching

Manhattan Ark

Entry: At one time, our city was great- shiny, beautiful, bustling with energy.  There were dreams of glory and people of such fresh vision for what we would and could be.  Though, at first, our future had meaning and purpose, it soon became toxic- plans got out of hand, money became the communication as well as the cause for miscommunication, competition rang out like a bell, no task was too big, no possibility too great.  

Then, suddenly one day, just like that...silence...It had all come to an end and the bottom had fallen away.  There was so much and, yet, nothing left...but the remnants, the dregs, the carcass of greed, a city that once was and could have been.  Now the Arks, sitting aloft over Manhattan; those colossal unfinished reminders of big arrogant dreams, the dead and dying, casualties of war, ships wrecked.  My, what has become of us?

Etching

OLD KNOCK ABOUT

Entry: Each summer season comes and leaves again, just as it arrived, like a fleeting breeze.  "Next year," I say every time and every time becomes just another excuse.  She sits in the yard year to year.  Though sagging in the sod, the grass growing up around her, covering her majesty, still she stands proudly, flaked just as we left her- "Old Knock About" or "Sweet Maiden" waiting for her next voyage.  Either way, she's ready and waiting with the patience of a saint saying sweetly, "take me to sea, dear friend, just one more time.  I promise to glide as I once did...to fly with the wind...to carry you to uncharted waters.  Have no fear, my love, my old trusted friend, I will not disappoint.  It is not here that I should rest, but at sea."

Etching 4" x 6"

CLOUD OF SAILS

ENTRY: Steady as she goes...full, strong and unwavering.  Beaten, but not defeated; easing into the quiet after a storm.  The sea has settled, a glassy, cooling lake.  Water lapping politely, caressingly, at the hull.

Watercolor

STUDIO IN THE SNOW

ENTRY: It all changes when the snow hits.  Things just seem to slow down and take on a new shape.  I love the feel of it, when it comes and engulfs my little studio.  The smell of wood fire settles in the atmosphere and the drifted landscape becomes a shifting mountainous range.  This is the place to be.  Solitude has never been so serene.

Etching Painted

POVERTY AND GLORY

ENTRY: We could feel it before it reached us.  We could smell it before it breathed life into our canvas and whistled in our ears.  It had to be a North Wind...and it had to be just right...and it was.  Only a handful of times before had we ever heard of it happening, you know.  Many of us, the saltiest of the crew, had heard the myth, had, from time to time, uttered those stories to one another up on deck, when we needed a thrill.  The younger lot wouldn't listen to us; they would not hear of legend.  For them, our aged and weathered faces, like our tired and battered ship, somehow discredited our integrity and worth.  We may have believed, but never had we EXPECTED it to come true- being able to fly...to sail among the clouds...to reach above the sun-baked rooftops of our village...to navigate the skies and not the sea...an adventure unknown.  

Now, it is that very moment that has arrived, a final journey for a handful of honest men at the end.  The heavens beckon, and we now shall sail to meet them; not a penny in our pockets nor a dime to our names.  With a hole in her stern and moth-eaten sails at her mast, the old girl surely on a last voyage with her brothers-in-arms aboard.  The aviary vessel...the cloud ship...we are poverty and glory.

SIZE 17 3/4" x 17 1/2" 

click on an image to enlarge and view visual story

Music At Night

Entry: Soft cool nights

on the wake of summer

the tobacco taste on my tongue

the sting of my guitar strings

etched into my fingertips

man, what a session

...what an evening

click on image to enlarge

Shackelton's Endurance

 

Entry: To the ends of the earth, till the salty sea turned frozen and we crunched our way to a stand still.  In the hopes that we would find something, in the hopes that we would be found, in the hopes that we would be remembered, in the hopes that we would be even missed at all.  Our beautiful vessel, her back broken and splintered across the icy landscape- our tomb.

click on image to enlarge

Rust Bucket

Entry: The creakin' sound she made at anchor, the first puff of coal powder smoke upon takin' 'er leave, the ever-peeling green, red and white paint that was slopped on fresh every other summer, on the first of June...those ashore, we could hear 'em talkin' and laughin' from time to time; they'd call 'er "rust bucket," but we'd just call 'er "home."

click on image to enlarge

MANHATTAN CHRISTMAS

 

Entry: The feel of it...the wintry bite on the tips of my ears and nose, the sweet invitation of fresh pine and woodfire in my senses, the comforting and familiar brush of the tree's branches against my face and neck as we loped through these city streets.  

The pick of the season, I tell you...the champion choice from the corner street lot. This will be the finest Christmas of all!

Size 8.5" x 5.5"

click on an image to enlarge and view visual story

Garbage Scow

Entry: The words awakened in my mind- "One man's trash is another man's treasure"- as I skirted the wake of the barge laden by such a trove that one would not believe.

Etching painted (Size- 17" x 6")

City Island Bay

Entry: On the horizon, as the fog of the sound was finally giving way, it could be seen, in all of its splendor, an island- City Island, well-hidden and sacred to the sailors of New York.  A secret of the boroughs, a small sliver of respite.  Oh, let it be so that this great place remain unspoiled and delicately protected for eternity, void of the chaos and confusion of its nearby cities or thereby sink beneath the weighty burden of its majestic comforts and sought out uniqueness to the very bottom of the sea.

click on image to enlarge

Sand Bagger Heaven

Entry: Nearing the final tack,
the milk-white moon was our mark,
and the chorus of stars 
our sweet serenade.

A Message to My Daughter

 

                       ...and in that very moment she was so much older than I.

 Size- 22" x 17 1/2"

Slocum and the Sphinx

Entry: And as she passed majestically beyond our bow, we couldn't help ourselves but to bid farewell to the sandy oasis; its warm, dry breezes billowy in our sails... 
Size- 9 3/4" x 7 3/4"

click on image to enlarge

The New Tenant

...and though I continued to shell out for our rent, each dreary month (hanging on, perhaps eager to see what might happen), I just knew, all too well (somehow) that we could go at any time.

Size- 7 3/4" x 9 3/4

LAST STOP

ENTRY: 

I don't know how it happened.  I can barely even recall it happening at all.  I do know that it was very sudden.  All I really remember is that one minute we were on a reach, on the last leg of the race- the four of us in the lead: Champion, Australia II, Essence and then Discovery.  The wind had picked up considerably and the sea was starting to put up a real fight, blinding us with its salty spume.  The crashing of the waves around us and on deck was completely deafening.  The squall was tossing us about with such ease and whim, and I remember thinking to myself "the gods are playing with us as if we were a just toy in a tub."

Strange to think of it that way now- "just a toy in a tub" - because that’s exactly what we've become.  We now find ourselves abandoned to a new place, a dreadfully empty and finished sort of place; it is a most massive site.  And though we are unsure of the coordinates of this different and colossal world, we realize that there is no finding our way back.  This world has no name.  It has neither latitude nor longitude.  It is a final destination...a last stop.

click on image to enlarge

Size: 4" x 5"

ALONE

Entry: I love how the sea has the ability to truly quiet me down- to put my soul at ease and clear away the confusion of the day.  When alone, sailing along its rippled and foamy surface, I find I am not entirely alone, but also, somehow, in good company.  It's a perfect kind of harmonious solitude that I encounter there, gliding in my dinghy, with the sweet silence of the salty breeze all around.  It's just me, only me, in the comfort and at the mercy of a great, deep entity, more powerful than anything I know.  Alone, I feel clear, calm and alive.

click on image to enlarge

Silent Street

 

click on image to enlarge

UNIVERSAL REGATTA

Etching Inscription: "And as the cries of my loved ones faded like gulls in the distance, I awoke in my own vessel sailing in the universal single-handed, one-of-a-kind regatta held at every moment by these shores."

click on image to enlarge